


road music

by torrentialTriages



Series: crush [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex, Self-Reflection, Trans Character, thats not how love works jacobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 06:45:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11526735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: There's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly / and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place-- / well then, game over.- Road Music, Richard Siken.i would not feel comfortable with you reading this if you are not 18+.





	road music

**Author's Note:**

> im not exactly comfortable releasing porn to this fandom but i did it anyway. who am i
> 
> for reference on the clone conversation, this piece is set entirely before ttk.

1.

stakeout.

jacobi can't help it, he's bored, kepler will only let him put together so many bombs in his spare time. reading the books maxwell recommended him only worked so many times, and it was only so long before he started pacing _up_ the walls with his pent-up manic energy.

there's nothing _else_ to do here but watch kepler watch the road, his skin and eyelashes caught in the dramatic golden 4 pm lighting. his grey eyes are peaceful in their intensity, firm in their unwavering certainty, always looking forward, a resting tiger surveying his land.

jacobi likes to imagine that same face in the context of profound emotional impact, or a lowkey party like the kind he and maxwell usually had with some close friends when they were feeling relaxed and youthful enough to pull out a guitar and bring some food, or even a domestic setting. that last one's more dangerous than kepler himself. it never helps to imagine things beyond his reach.

kepler is... beautiful. the scars pitting his face are impossible to ignore but jacobi envies how after the fact, he can look past them and see the fanciful quirk of Kepler's lips as he jokes with his team, see the way his eyes sparkle, with joy, satisfaction, cruelty, danger, attraction, see the fine build of his facial features that cannot be hidden by jagged slashes that kepler refuses to explain.

there should be a heart there, somewhere in kepler's eyes, something that tells jacobi of what makes a person warren kepler, what makes warren kepler a person, but he's never been good at searching for something he's not sure has to exist.

he sits up and continues work on a watch-operated bomb he's been mulling over the past few days. kepler raises his eyebrows, still not looking away from the street.

"that's the fourth one this week."

"i know, sir."

kepler nods.

it's all about knowing how to slot the wires under the battery in the grooves he's filing in, thinks jacobi. just like the hold he tries to keep on his emotions. too tight, and nothing happens. too loose, and, well, the moment you so much as shake them?

game over.

 

2.

kepler tells him to get some sleep, on the only bed in the room and jacobi can't help but overthink that it's wide enough for the both of them.

he's doing a lot of overthinking, staring up at the ceiling as kepler sits, wondering, is he still the same jacobi? could he ever claim to be the same jacobi he was a decade, a year, a month, a day ago?

his mind has changed, he's known better, he's done worse, he's fought and scraped to build himself into the man he is today, with kepler's help of course, otherwise he would've dead-ended in san francisco and that would've been the end of daniel kenneth jacobi, having only turned in his name change papers two years ago to the day when kepler walked in and lit up his world.

at least he would've had his corpse dumped in a ditch with the right name to his face.

maxwell told him about the ship of theseus, a while back, and it haunts him sometimes. he can still remember the exact speech she'd given him.

 _if you take a ship, it belongs to this guy named theseus, and keep replacing the parts every time something breaks,_  she says over steaming boxes of chinese takeout, chow mein halfway to her mouth, _is it still the same ship once you've replaced everything? anything at all? what makes it_ theseus's _ship? and parallel to that, what makes you_ you? _how are you sure you're always the original you?_

memory-jacobi chews on his orange chicken thoughtfully and mulls it over. current jacobi stares up at the ceiling, fists clenched in the blankets, and mulls it over.

if you take who he was at birth, and give that child new memories, new identities*, new life philosophies, is that infant the real daniel jacobi or is he the real one? if, right now, they cloned him, and gave that clone all of his memories and life experience, would they still turn out the same or would they be slightly, perceptibly different? or wildly different?

if he hadn't met kepler, future employment aside, would he still be _jacobi?_

_*and when did he fucking realize "michelle maryam" wasn't his name, when did he realize he never wanted to wear a dress again because he never wanted adults to pat him on the head and coo "what a pretty girl, you must be so proud of her" to his mother, never wanted the guys in school to look at him like they looked at the girls he always tried not to compare himself to in the changing rooms, something close but not quite, when did he realize, did he always know?_

what even defines _him_ as jacobi? what defines him as an individual? god, where does he even start? is he a person because of his unique combination of experiences? what makes an individual? even set apart from a clone?

it's times like these he wishes he hadn't given up drinking for kepler.

"you're still awake, aren't you?" jacobi starts when he realizes kepler's talking to him.

"yes, sir."

"get some sleep, jacobi. you'll need it."

"yes, sir."

 

3.

they finally get the order to stand down and they immediately know they have time. time to strip down as little as necessary, lips meeting, bodies meeting, clashing, they have so much to say but this is not what they are saying, no, this is another fight, one who says _tell me all your secrets goddammit i want to know you like i know the dark bloody orange light behind my eyelids, like i know exactly how much i would do for you_ , and the other screaming, battering like a frenzied moth, like a hurricane relentlessly crashing against the pitiful manmade attempts to contain it, _i am unknowable, i have no past, i have never not been a weapon made to be laid at goddard's feet and you_ will _follow me because i will mold you into my shadow like you have always wanted_.

they always come back to these fights.

kepler says _get on the bed_ and jacobi follows his orders, kepler kneels on the floor in front of the bed and jacobi thinks he's dreaming, that he'll wake up before they get to the good part, but kepler's looking at him for permission, oddly vulnerable crouched at jacobi's crotch and they aren't getting any younger, they only have so much time, so what the hell, jacobi threads his hands through kepler's hair and kepler follows the pressure down.

sometimes jacobi's not entirely sure he _loves_ kepler, no, can he really call fear/hatred/loyalty/admiration/his desperate need for validation any kind of love? but god, the way kepler's running his tongue over his clit again and again is almost enough to solve this great fucking mystery, to launch jacobi into enlightenment: is this what love is? is love only experienced at the behest of an orgasm? is the way he's twisting his fists in kepler's hair and straining at the limitations and restraints of his taut mortal flesh the purest form of romantic love he can possibly manifest?

he's fucked up. he knows. twenty one years of abuse and to not have come out of it with a fucked up sense of love and relationships? in the jacobi household? and the years after that, left on his own to sort out the assorted shards of his life?

kepler's tongue delves into him and he grunts, pulled back to the present, pulling on kepler's hair. (he'll catch hell for that later, won't he.) "sir- god, fuck."

kepler hums, still inside him, and jacobi exhales shakily, hips rolling with as much control as he can exert. and then kepler moves back to his dick, and- oh, _holy_  fuck, okay, those are fingers, those are fingers, broad and coarse and gentle, coaxing their way into him, and some more truly embarrassing noises spill out of him as he jerks and cants his hips, he'll admit that much.

kepler works relentlessly, slowly building him up, teasing him into a tense wire of electricity that hums with brimming potential and fuck, it's all so much, he doesn't think he'll last much longer-

he doesn't, fuck, how could he when kepler crooks his fingers _just like that_ , in a _come hither_  gesture, and jacobi comes, all right, he comes shaking and with a breathy moan that he doesn't dare let get louder.

his shudders subside and all he can hear outside of his noisy body settling back down is kepler grunting as he spills into his hand, but he's too busy catching his breath, trying to grasp his discombobulated senses beyond what his blurred hearing can give him. kepler rises to his feet, wiping his hand on the bedsheet, and jacobi sits up, grabbing him by the hand, kepler watching him take his hand to his mouth and lick it clean. when jacobi is done he lets go and kepler wipes traces of jacobi off his chin with the back of his hand and smirks. "let's get going, mr. jacobi," he says, "they'll be waiting for us and our report."

 _wait,_  jacobi wants to say, feeling incomplete, _we never finished our conversation, will you just let me talk? will you let me finish? you always fucking do this._

he hates him.

he _loves_  him.

he follows him.

**Author's Note:**

> road music is on [pages 38-39.](http://library.globalchalet.net/Authors/Poetry%20Books%20Collection/Richard%20Siken%20-%20Crush%20\(Yale%20Series%20of%20Younger%20Poets\).pdf)


End file.
